ceived with doubt. For their mythology taught that beyond the Ocean lay the Elysian fields, the regions of the Blest:
ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθος
τῇπερ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν.
οὐ νιφετὸς οὖτ' ἂρ χειμὼν πολύς, οὔτε ποτ' ὄμβρος,
ἀλλ' αἰεὶ ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀήτασ
Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν, ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους.
"The blissful plains
Of utmost earth where Rhadamanthus reigns.
Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear,
Fill the wide circle of the eternal year:
Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime:
The fields are florid with unfading prime.
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow,
But from the breezy deep the blest inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale."
The ideas which Greek mythology thus associated with the west were very different from those connected with the other extremities of the world, and bear a striking resemblance to the accounts given by the first Spanish discoveries. Greek mythology was in a great measure a system founded on events which had taken place in the earliest ages of the world, the recollection of which was imperfectly handed down to later times; and in this instance the popular belief actually was that land did exist beyond the Atlantic, and that Ocean was not a boundless expanse of sea.
The statement given by Plato in the Timæus is generally treated as if it was altogether unsupported by the testimony of any other writer. But it will be shown that this is not the case. The passage is as follows,
τότε γὰρ πορεύσιμον ἦν τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος· νῆσον γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ στόματος εἶχεν, ὃ καλεῖτε, ὥς φατε ὑμεῖς, Ἡρακλέους στήλας. ἡ δὲ νῆσος ἅμα Λιβύης ἦν καὶ Ἀσίας μείζων, ἐξ ἧς ἐπιβατὸν ἐπὶ τὰς ἄλλας νήσους τοῖς τότ' ἐγίγνετο πορευνομένοις. ἐκ δὲ τῶν νήσων ἐπὶ τὴν καταντικρὺ πᾶσαν ἤπειρον τὴν περὶ τὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκεῖνον πόντον. τάδε μὲν γὰρ ὅσα ἐντὸς τοῦ στόματος οὗ λέγομεν φαίνεται λιμὴν στενόν τινα ἔχων εἴσπλουν. ἐκεῖνο δὲ πέλαγος ὄντως ἥ τε περιέχουσα αὐτό γῆ παντελῶς ἀληθῶς, ὀρθότατ' ἄν λέγειτο ἤπειρος.
"For at that time the sea in those parts was navigable; for it had an island before its mouth which you call ‘Hercules Pillars’, and the island was larger than Africa and Asia together, and from it there was access to the other islands for the men of that time in their journeyings, and from the islands to the whole opposite (literally directly opposite) continent that
